I think we need to keep reminding ourselves that Google’s guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=28800), on how to create Google-friendly sites, haven’t changes that much over the years, so if you follow them and have a structured approach to your website and marketing strategy; beyond rankings, we should do fine...

Definitely follow thought leaders like Cyrus and the SEOmoz team, but keep in mind the natural way the web evolves and don’t worry about being the first to adopt the latest trend (Google Buzz anyone?), or restructure the whole of your website just because you read a blog post about it, especially if you don’t have the resource to manage it.

I’m lead to believe Google's aim is to present the searcher with most relevant results to their query...

...therefore why are you concerned if Google chooses a different title tag?

Surely what matters is how many people click through and read/subscribe the page/site?

You don’t show what number you page was ranked for your vanity search, (apologies if you did include it in the post, but with all the images, I wasn’t sure where the post began or finished) I see you at #8, but where would your post have been if Distilled didn’t give you some #linklove?

Using the NOODP does not affect Google (other search engines are available) selecting a snippet or relevant content from your site and using it in you meta description, it only stops them using your entry in the Open Directory Project. (happy to be corrected on this)